Leadership Essentials Sample
Introduction
Leadership theory basically defines the qualities or skills a person needs to have to become a successful leader and how a leader can help an organisation to grow. This report will portray that how leadership theories and practices have impacted the sustainability of Google as an organisation.
This report will describe the trait theory of leadership and how it has helped Google to sustain its growth and also how the leadership theories are more beneficial to Google. Moreover, brief emphasis would also be provided in this case on the leadership, gender and diversity as well as a brief discussion on leadership development, power and influence in the context of Google.
a. Evaluation of leadership theory
Trait theory of leadership
Trait can be defined as personality characteristics, which requires to meet three criteria that is it must be stable, vary from person to person and consistent. The trait approach mainly focuses on several differences among individuals unlike other personality theories like that of psychoanalytic or humanistic theories.
A personality is formed by the blend and collaboration of numeroustraits that is unique to each person. The trait theory of leadership is mainly focused on determining and analysing these individual characteristics (Salihu, 2019).
Figure 1: Trait theory of leadership
(Source: Salihu, 2019)
The traits, which can be notified within a great leader, include adaptability and creativity, enthusiasm to motivate people, resolution and courage, assertiveness, flexibility, decisiveness, motivation to take responsibility, emotional stability, people skills, competence of complying with the task, desire for achievement, intelligence and action oriented judgment, trustworthiness, self-confidence, persistence, signifying their follower’s requirements (Hunt and Fedynich, 2019).
A very good example of leadership traits can be highlighted in Google, which truly harness their physical resources, human and capital in fostering creativity and innovation. Google Labs are one the main loci of creativity where a number of new ideas are incubated, it is a process where the thoughts of users for new ideas are welcomed by Google.
Several innovative concepts such as Google Maps and Google Glass were created in the Google Lab (Alhajri, 2022). Google’s management has implemented these innovations as a subsequent part of its entire functions. Google has been considering radical innovation in their business. These are some evidences such as; Google Glass, AsWords, YoueTube, GMail and Google+ are some of Google’s products, which have radically upturned logical assumptions in their respective field.
Android and Chrome OS are recognised as respective evidences of interfaces developed through the collaboration between the outside community and Google. Another very good example of closed innovation is Google Wave, which illustrates the pluspoint of own innovation ecosystem in Google after its development without the help of certain additional beneficence (Alhajri, 2022).
The leaders in Google have paid attention to signify lucrative benefits and rewards for their employees that has been motivating their workforce to a large extent. For example, Google provides subsequent Employee Assistance Program as well as adequate focus on mental well being of the employees (Google, 2022).
Along with this, an onsite wellness centre is also provided by Google that is largely contributing the company with profound growth opportunities with the help of motivated workforce (Google, 2022). With the inclusion of skilled people as well as action oriented judgment, Google has been able to emerge as the most renowned search engine service provider.
Figure 2: Market capitalisation of Google
(Source: Companies market cap, 2022)
The combined impact of the aforementioned leadership traits can be notified by evaluating the market capitalisation of Google, which is standing at $1.281 trillion as per the reports of October 2022 (Companies market cap, 2022).
Figure 3: Situational leadership theory
(Source: Wuryani et al. 2021)
In order to critique the aspects of trait theory of leadership, the situational leadership theory can be considered. As per the situational model of leadership, it emphasises on the flexibility of the leaders to adapt the requirements of their followers and demands of the situation.
Situational leadership put greater consideration to the complexity of the dynamic situation and also to many individuals who are acting as per their roles and will contribute to the outcome (Wuryani et al. 2021). On the other hand, trait theory argues that some people are born with personal characteristics or traits, which makes them a natural leader.
However, every other individual may have different traits and hence, there is no particular trait that will help to make a successful leader on its own.
With reference to the situational leadership theory, a complete difference can be notified from the trait theory where the clause of situational judgment is missing. Moreover, the situational leadership theory focuses on highlighting proper leadership style as required for a particular situation that might be effective to help a leader with accurate decision-making ability (Manyuchi and Sukdeo, 2021).
From this viewpoint, the gap of the trait theory can be pointed out, which only enlightens possible leadership skills and qualities. However, in the case of Google, high maturity style can be noticed within their leadership, which has helped them to empower their financial growth despite witnessing the toxic impact of the ongoing pandemic situation.
b. Evaluation of leadership practices and sustainability
Leadership, gender and diversity
In accordance with the studies of Dirani et al. (2020), it has been found that leaders and leadership skills play a major role in the success of an organisational management. It provides the ability for the overall management to focus on a specific objective and guide the team through different obstacles to achieve the ultimate objective set by the management.
Hence, it is considered that leaders play an essential role in influencing the behaviour of the team members to enhance performance and achieve certain objectives. There are a number of skill sets that are being focused by leaders to enhance overall performance (Gomez and Bernet, 2019).
For example, the skill sets of influencing the team members, interpersonal processes, group development, and guidance for better and optimum performance. Leaders are considered to be an essential asset of organisational management in order to witness significant performance growth by initiating actions based on the requirements.
According toJia et al. (2018), leaders also provide the significant advantage of providing motivation to the team members by giving them financial and non-financial initiatives to perform better and more effectively. As a result, it enables leaders to create a positive work environment by listening to the problems of employees and dividing them with efficient solutions (Van Hoef, 2019).
A positive work environment provides the ability for an organisational management to witness significant stable growth within the organisational performance. In the case of Google, their CEO Sundar Pichai focuses on supporting the development of the team members to get optimum performance and provide them with the ability to showcase their ideas within the management. For example, it is noted that Sundar Pichai is one of the most successful CEOs all around the globe, interns’ office, leadership qualities and skills (Comparably, 2022).
As a successful leader, Sundar Pichai is able to manage dynamic situations in a more peaceful manner. Thus, it has enabled Sundar Pichai to successfully witness significant financial growth in Google within the last few years.
Figure 4: Google global annual revenue 2002-2021
(Source: Statista, 2022)
As per the above figure, it can be stated that Google has witnessed significant growth in their overall revenue within these years. Google has witnessed a significant growth rate, which amounted to $256.74 billion in the year of 2021 from a significant amount of $181.69 billion in the year 2020 (Statista, 2022).
On the other hand, it can be stated that gender diversity is the concept, which highlights the equality among fair representation of different genders. As concluded from the studies of Mohammad et al. (2018, p.8), it has been noted that gender diversity plays a significant advantage in enhancing an organisational performance in retaining talented employees from different parts of the globe. For example, companies that focus on gender diversity are able to retain skilful talent unbiased from the gender to have significant growth in their overall performance (Criscuolo et al. 2021).
In the case of Google, it has been found that Google has invested more than $25 million in the majority of organisations around the globe on economic empowerment based on gender diversity (Impact challenge, 2021). As a result, Google has been discovered to have intensified their support for gender parity in Africa by funding the majority of the girls in the workspace programme for young women in the digital sector. To boost gender diversity, Google has teamed up with the Graca Machel Trust to offer digital skills training to over 5,000 female entrepreneurs (Google user content, 2022).
Google has also focused on initiating a program in the year 2021, which was stated as #IAmRemarkable and reached over 300,000 participants across 170 countries around the globe (Google user content, 2022). As an example, it can also be stated that Google has focused on providing training and development programmes based on digital skills to black women in the US (Major, 2021). Apparently, it can be stated that Google has focused on investing a significant amount of financial funds in enhancing the level of gender diversity throughout the globe and within the workforce of Google, which would better reflect the diversity of gender to the globe.
Leadership development
Leadership development contains major development programmes, which can be based on complexity, cost and style of teaching (Cotterill and Fransen, 2021). Hence, it has been noted that it provides the ability for leaders to enhance their capability of decision-making skills as well as project management.
Apparently, it also focuses on the management qualities of the leaders as well as getting accurate knowledge regarding the latest technological advancement within the team (Guzmán et al. 2020). One of the major importances of leadership development is its capability to enhance and improve the bottom line financial performance capabilities of an organisational management.
As an example, it can be stated that companies that focus on investing high financial funds in human resource development programmes are able to acquire five times higher profits as compared to other companies with less emphasis and the development of human capital (Hilorme et al. 2020).
As a result, it enables an organisation management to eliminate chances of low retention rate, talent bottleneck and other significant hazards within the management. On the other hand, it has also been noted that organisations that provide superior development programmes to their employees are able to attract superior talent within the competitive market of employees (Ibrahim and Daniel, 2018).
It also provides the advantage to an organisational management to enhance their capabilities of decision-making skills. It also provides them with the ability to overcome any type of obstacle or hazard within the organisational management. Apart from that, it also provides the management with the capability to resolve problems of the employees within the workplace, which helps them to motivate and enhance the overall performance of the team (Song et al. 2019).
Therefore, leadership development is an important method, which needs to be adopted by organisational management in order to enhance their performance level in the competitive marketplace.
In the case of Google, Sundar Pichai has been considered as an effective global leader based on his leadership style. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google focuses on providing significant assistance to the workforce as well as providing them with accurate knowledge and development programmes for their professional benefit (The leaderboy, 2022).
In respect to Google, it has adopted significant development plans for their leaders within their management for ensuring better performance and optimisation within a particular time period. For example, it has been noted that in the year of 2013, Google launched a training programme for more than 50% of their employees all around the globe (Google user content, 2022).
Hence, by adopting two significant plans of development programmes for leaders within the organisation and management of Google, the company has managed to witness significant growth in the employment rate within these years. In the year 2019, Google witnessed a total number of employees 118,899 significantly witnessing an increase of 13.79% to 135,301 in the year 2022 (Macro trends, 2022). Despite the COVID-19 pandemic situation all around the globe, Google has witnessed a significant increase of 15.67% from the year 2020 in their overall employee numbers (Macro trends, 2022).
As Sundar Pichai was elected as the CEO of Google in the year of 2015 on August 10, Google has considerably witnessed rapid growth in their overall financial performance over these years, with the help of its employees as well as the leadership skills of Sundar Pichai (Economic times, 2022).
Hence, Google’s development plan for leadership has been successful and has resulted in them witnessing significant growth in the overall employee numbers. Apart from an increase in employee numbers, Google has also witnessed significant growth in their overall gross profit within the COVID-19 pandemic days. Google has witnessed a significant growth of more than 50.01% increase in their overall annual gross profit from the year 2020 to 2021, which amounted to $146.69 billion (Macro trends, 2022).
Thus, adoption of leadership development programmes provides significant advantages to the organisational management in order to improve and enhance the overall performance level.
Power and influence
Leadership, power and influence is one of the major aspects that is considered to be significantly beneficial in terms of enhancing workplace performance within organisational management (Razak et al. 2018). The concept of power can be stated as the influence that the leaders have on the workers within the workplace in terms of performance and productivity.
It includes the support that the leaders provide to their workforce in order to achieve certain objectives and goals. Therefore, leadership power and influence is a vital aspect to optimise performance within the workforce (Li et al. 2019). However, the power and influence of the leaders also provide a significant influence on the workers with respect to their performance and productivity within an organisational management.
Apart from that, it also provides them with the ability to take necessary decisions regarding the performance of great incentives, and other factors that can influence the overall performance of an organisational management. Hence, it is considered to provide a significant advantage to the employees based on the leading power and influence with respect to achieve the organisational goals (Kremer et al. 2019). However, there are several types of powers that a particular leader has within an organisational management.
The primary type of leadership power is considered to be the legitimate power, which enables the leaders to utilise their position to influence employees as per their needs (Cortellazzo et al. 2019). For example, this type of leadership power is considered to be mainly noted in military rankings. However, legitimate leadership power can also provide assistance to the leaders in order to organise large businesses and ensure everyone is following the same goals and objectives as per the organisational criteria.
The second leadership power is considered to be referent leadership power. In this particular type of power, the leaders are considered to be the role model for the employees that has a strong impact on the overall workforce in terms of performance and productivity (Fries et al. 2021).
Individuals that have referent leadership power are capable of strong, interpersonal skills and other capabilities within the workforce, which can be admired by the employees. The third leadership power can be considered as the information base power of leaders with extraordinary knowledge of particular aspects (Lei et al. 2019).
Informative leadership power provides the ability to the leaders of the organisational management to provide accurate development and training programmes to the workforce in terms of enhancing their overall performance and knowledge regarding the latest technological factors.
Sundar Pichai utilises its power to connect with the employees of Google and focuses on creating a community that focuses on innovative ideas. With a market capitalisation of $1,392 billion in February 2021, Google’s parent firm Alphabet was ranked second among all online companies globally (Statista, 2022). Therefore, qualities of Sundar Pichai have been highlighted in Google’s performance level throughout the world.
Figure 5: Google: brand value 2006-2022
(Source: Statista, 2022)
As referred to in the above figure, since Sundar Pichai has become the CEO of Google in the year of 2015, the company has witnessed significant growth over these years by increasing its brand value. The brand value of Google was around $173.65 in the year of 2015, which has now transformed to $819.57 in the year of 2022 (Statista, 2022).
As a result, it can be stated that Sundar Pichai has considerably enhanced the brand value of Google within three years of being CEO. Therefore, the powers of Sundar Pichai as a leader significantly influenced and motivated the workforce of Google, which resulted in highlighting such performance growth over the years.
Figure 6: Global market share of search engines 2010-2022
(Source: Statista, 2022)
Despite all the performance growth of Google, it has also witnessed significant growth in the demand as a search engine in the internet industry. In the month of July 2022, it has been noted that Google had a share of around 83% of the search engine (Statista, 2022).
Meanwhile, Google’s major competitor, Yahoo has only 2.55% of the market share of search engines in the internet industry (Statista, 2022). In regard to the overall findings, Sundar Pichai can be considered as one of the major effective leaders with sheer power and influence over the growth of Google.
Conclusion
From the above discussions, it can be understood that trait theory implies the inborn traits or the personal characteristics of an individual helps them to make a natural leader. This not always applicable as traits may vary from person to person and there is no single trait in particular which will help to make a great or a successful leader on its own.
Moreover, the power and influence provide a significant influence to the performance and productivity of the worker in an organisation. Hence, a conclusion can be drawn that with a great performance and productivity Google has witnessed a significant growth in the demand as a search engine in the internet industry.
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